WEBVTT 00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:02.540 If you want to learn more about the topics of 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:06.219 today's episode, visit the podcast website at 00:00:06.219 --> 00:00:09.339 naturessecretservice .com. Thanks for listening. 00:00:34.060 --> 00:00:37.960 Okay, people listen up. Here we go. This is Nature's 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:39.719 Secret Service, the podcast that puts you in 00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:41.780 the room with the men and women of wildlife law 00:00:41.780 --> 00:00:44.920 enforcement. I'm Ed Newcomer, your host. And 00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:48.979 today we have Brian Christie with us. Brian is 00:00:48.979 --> 00:00:52.299 an author, a journalist, and a filmmaker. He's 00:00:52.299 --> 00:00:55.020 written a fictional espionage thriller entitled 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:58.259 In the Company of Killers. but he's also the 00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:00.799 author of a nonfiction book called The Lizard 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:04.239 King, which takes a really fascinating deep dive 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:06.719 into reptile trafficking in the United States. 00:01:07.840 --> 00:01:11.000 He founded National Geographic's first investigations 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:14.319 unit that looked into wildlife crime, and he's 00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:17.540 a National Geographic Society Rolex Explorer 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:20.319 of the Year. Brian Christie, thanks for being 00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:22.739 on the show. Welcome to Nature's Secret Service. 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:26.290 Thanks for having me. You and I have known each 00:01:26.290 --> 00:01:28.010 other for a few years, and I have to say I'm 00:01:28.010 --> 00:01:30.829 very jealous of your National Geographic Society 00:01:30.829 --> 00:01:32.950 Explorer of the Year. I've always wanted to be 00:01:32.950 --> 00:01:35.510 an Nat Geo Explorer, but I don't know how to 00:01:35.510 --> 00:01:43.650 do it. I mean, really, you don't have to do anything. 00:01:43.849 --> 00:01:50.290 You just go out and follow your passion. It's, 00:01:50.290 --> 00:01:53.670 I'm very privileged to be in that group because 00:01:53.670 --> 00:01:58.510 there's some extraordinary people doing, you 00:01:58.510 --> 00:02:02.709 know, cutting edge every aspect of exploration. 00:02:02.930 --> 00:02:05.209 They've got somebody doing something extraordinary 00:02:05.209 --> 00:02:08.990 and I don't know how I got in there. It's very 00:02:08.990 --> 00:02:11.810 cool. I do a lot of exploring, Brian. I'm just 00:02:11.810 --> 00:02:14.930 waiting for him to call me. They don't call. 00:02:16.689 --> 00:02:22.139 They don't call. When you make your next big 00:02:22.139 --> 00:02:24.919 discovery, let me know, and I will pass a message 00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:30.360 on. Let's do that. OK. OK, that sounds fair. 00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:32.099 That sounds fair. I'll try to keep a notebook 00:02:32.099 --> 00:02:35.199 of my various adventures and discoveries, and 00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:37.719 you'll be my in. That sounds good. All right. 00:02:38.889 --> 00:02:41.750 Hey, I'm so glad you're willing to come on the 00:02:41.750 --> 00:02:45.550 podcast because I have read the Lizard King actual 00:02:45.550 --> 00:02:48.830 actually multiple times Because you do such a 00:02:48.830 --> 00:02:52.669 great job of kind of capturing Not not just kind 00:02:52.669 --> 00:02:56.110 of the history of Reptile trafficking in the 00:02:56.110 --> 00:02:58.069 u .s. You kind of start at the beginning of the 00:02:58.069 --> 00:03:01.120 book telling little bit of the background on 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:04.479 why reptiles are so popular in the US why they're 00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:08.159 kind of a consistently popular exotic pet but 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:10.539 you also really dive into kind of the mindset 00:03:10.539 --> 00:03:14.680 of the people who get involved in wild animal 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:18.280 legal and illegal trade which I found just so 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:21.039 fascinating as a Investigator who used to chase 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:24.639 these people. It's really interesting to to get 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:26.580 into that. And, you know, the one thing I've 00:03:26.580 --> 00:03:28.159 always wanted to ask you is, you know, how did 00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:30.919 you even ever become aware of this story that 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:33.800 you tell in The Lizard King? And, you know, can 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:35.620 you just kind of run us through, tell us a little 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:40.000 bit about the history of reptile collecting and 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.780 ownership and selling and buying in the States? 00:03:43.659 --> 00:03:49.080 Sure. Yeah. I mean, to me, I think just to stick 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:56.490 with your first point, It's really about collecting, 00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:59.610 and I'm really attracted to the collecting obsession, 00:03:59.669 --> 00:04:03.409 whether it's reptiles or coins. I did a story 00:04:03.409 --> 00:04:05.669 on the smuggling of the world's most valuable 00:04:05.669 --> 00:04:10.150 coin, and that really primed me for looking into 00:04:10.150 --> 00:04:12.310 wildlife trafficking, because it's really a lot 00:04:12.310 --> 00:04:15.409 of the same motivations, whether it's coins or 00:04:15.409 --> 00:04:20.430 stamps or wine or painting or wildlife. One of 00:04:20.430 --> 00:04:28.319 the primary motivations is Knowledge sort of 00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:31.959 knowledge once you get to know something about 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:38.220 a species There are for certain people a desire 00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:43.199 to possess that Thing and that's the same with 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.959 coins or stamps and things and the thing about 00:04:46.959 --> 00:04:50.540 reptiles is you can hold them and And they're 00:04:50.540 --> 00:04:54.560 cold -blooded so you can store them in very limited 00:04:55.540 --> 00:04:59.060 Space and so people are collecting them the way 00:04:59.060 --> 00:05:00.939 you collect coins and they're putting them in 00:05:00.939 --> 00:05:04.399 shelving units that look like something you might 00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:08.240 store maps or manuscripts in and So that was 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:10.360 one of the things that attracted me right off 00:05:10.360 --> 00:05:15.420 the bat I had just done a story for Playboy magazine 00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:19.879 on coin collecting this coin smuggling case and 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:24.199 It was the rarest coin on Earth, and there was 00:05:24.199 --> 00:05:26.079 supposed to only be one of them. Sotheby's sold 00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:28.920 it for a record amount. And I found another one 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:32.540 the next day I started looking into it. And so 00:05:32.540 --> 00:05:34.879 they said to me, if you could do anything next, 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:39.040 what would you do? And I've always loved reptiles. 00:05:39.660 --> 00:05:42.899 I had reptiles as a boy. And I'd heard about 00:05:42.899 --> 00:05:48.060 this new then thing called designer breeding. 00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:52.600 So I wanted to do a story about designer breeding. 00:05:53.620 --> 00:05:55.959 And they said, well, we're not really interested 00:05:55.959 --> 00:05:59.379 in that. We want crime stories. And I said, well, 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:05.019 hell, there's crime. It was a young editor. I 00:06:05.019 --> 00:06:08.779 said, there's crime in this for sure. And I had 00:06:08.779 --> 00:06:13.360 vague memories of names like Tommy Crutchfield 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:18.160 and Hank Molt from when I was buying reptiles 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:23.269 in college. And they said, well, tell us about 00:06:23.269 --> 00:06:28.350 the crime stories. And I was driving at the time. 00:06:28.470 --> 00:06:31.209 I said, you know, we have a bad connection. And 00:06:31.209 --> 00:06:34.389 I hung up the phone and I was in Florida. I drove 00:06:34.389 --> 00:06:37.949 to the courthouse in Orlando and started looking 00:06:37.949 --> 00:06:45.889 up reptile crime cases. And case after case was 00:06:45.889 --> 00:06:49.569 had as a defendant. a reference to a company 00:06:49.569 --> 00:06:53.310 called Strictly Reptiles. And case after case 00:06:53.310 --> 00:06:56.670 had reference to a fish and wildlife agent named 00:06:56.670 --> 00:07:02.050 Charles Bepler. And I drove down Florida from 00:07:02.050 --> 00:07:04.629 courthouse to courthouse looking at the original 00:07:04.629 --> 00:07:09.029 files, having them pull files. And that became 00:07:09.029 --> 00:07:11.589 true as I proceeded down all the way to Miami. 00:07:12.269 --> 00:07:15.170 And by the time I got to Miami, I... I decided 00:07:15.170 --> 00:07:16.850 that this was something I really wanted to look 00:07:16.850 --> 00:07:20.670 into. So that was the start. Very cool, because 00:07:20.670 --> 00:07:23.889 the names you mentioned, Crutchfield, Strictly 00:07:23.889 --> 00:07:28.410 Reptiles, Hank Molt, those are kind of infamous 00:07:28.410 --> 00:07:30.629 names within the US Fish and Wildlife Service 00:07:30.629 --> 00:07:33.389 Office of Law Enforcement. Every agent either 00:07:33.389 --> 00:07:38.470 does know or should know those names. You you 00:07:38.470 --> 00:07:41.290 talk about Charles Bepler He went by chip in 00:07:41.290 --> 00:07:44.290 the service had a great reputation as an agent 00:07:44.290 --> 00:07:48.350 and I love the way you get into not only you 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:52.310 know his Motives and his drivers but also how 00:07:52.310 --> 00:07:54.790 those motives and drivers compared and related 00:07:54.790 --> 00:07:58.389 to his main nemesis Which was the people who 00:07:58.389 --> 00:08:00.930 ran strictly reptiles who were those guys? Tell 00:08:00.930 --> 00:08:03.589 us a little bit about those people Yeah, I mean 00:08:03.589 --> 00:08:06.829 the book is I set up basically as a cat -and 00:08:06.829 --> 00:08:11.370 -mouse story between Chip Bepler the fish and 00:08:11.370 --> 00:08:15.529 wildlife Agent and his nemesis Mike Van Nostrand 00:08:15.529 --> 00:08:17.990 who runs strictly reptiles strictly reptiles 00:08:17.990 --> 00:08:22.470 is the largest Reptile wholesale company on earth. 00:08:22.589 --> 00:08:26.689 They are they are bringing in 50 % of the green 00:08:26.689 --> 00:08:29.470 iguanas you see in pet shops around the country 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:34.580 back in the 90s came from that single place. 00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:37.600 They're bringing in every reptile that's available 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:41.500 legally, and as it would turn out, some amazing 00:08:41.500 --> 00:08:48.279 illegal animals as well. Chip and Mike were really 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:54.360 wonderful to focus on as a cat and mouse because 00:08:54.360 --> 00:09:01.080 they were opposites in every way. Chip was a 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:08.440 tall, thin, relatively thin, a 6 '4", thin guy, 00:09:09.639 --> 00:09:16.240 very soft spoken, very polite, comes from a family. 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:19.980 All his siblings have master's degrees or PhDs. 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:24.039 His father was a doctor, went to Princeton, served 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:27.899 in Korean War. Everything about him was... upper 00:09:27.899 --> 00:09:33.820 crust, and Chip was motivated by loved animals. 00:09:34.220 --> 00:09:40.960 He just, he had an affection for animals that 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:45.100 said, I'm not going to follow the path my family's, 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:49.220 you know, this advanced degree, college, his 00:09:49.220 --> 00:09:51.980 sister's a PhD in chemistry. I'm not doing that 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:54.200 route. I want to be out with the animals I care 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:58.639 about. So contrast that with Mike Van Nostrand 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:04.779 who weighs 352 pounds. He's loud. He drives a 00:10:04.779 --> 00:10:07.440 jacked up F -250 truck that he can't get in. 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:12.039 He can barely get into. It has a horn that he 00:10:12.039 --> 00:10:16.559 has doctored. It's a train horn. It's illegal. 00:10:17.019 --> 00:10:19.500 And he likes to drive through the prominent neighborhoods 00:10:19.500 --> 00:10:23.159 in South Florida. He lives in Davie and blow 00:10:23.159 --> 00:10:28.039 the horn. while people are eating out in outdoor 00:10:28.039 --> 00:10:36.440 restaurants, just for no reason. I spent years 00:10:36.440 --> 00:10:38.980 with Mike. I was shot in the head with paper 00:10:38.980 --> 00:10:48.419 clips regularly. He threw a hundred pound python 00:10:48.419 --> 00:10:53.570 on me when I wasn't looking. He had me cleaning 00:10:53.570 --> 00:10:57.129 the cages of bird -eating tarantulas that are, 00:10:57.529 --> 00:11:02.090 as you may know, they have these hairs that they 00:11:02.090 --> 00:11:05.529 use as a defense that they sort of brush off, 00:11:05.750 --> 00:11:08.029 nictating hairs that get in your eyes and your 00:11:08.029 --> 00:11:12.730 skin can put you in the hospital. So those are 00:11:12.730 --> 00:11:16.549 two very different characters. Mike's dad was 00:11:16.549 --> 00:11:20.389 not only an amazing reptile dealer, but he also 00:11:20.389 --> 00:11:23.879 ran drugs. and guns in South Florida at a time 00:11:23.879 --> 00:11:28.299 when it was a very violent thing to do. So those 00:11:28.299 --> 00:11:30.399 two characters, to bring them together in a story 00:11:30.399 --> 00:11:34.740 was just too good to be true for me. Yeah, it 00:11:34.740 --> 00:11:37.460 was tailor -made. Definitely tailor -made. Tell 00:11:37.460 --> 00:11:39.740 us about, like, give us a sense of the scope 00:11:39.740 --> 00:11:45.600 of Mike Van Nostrand and Shrictly Reptile's business. 00:11:46.169 --> 00:11:48.649 And not only their legal business, but the illegal 00:11:48.649 --> 00:11:51.309 business, too. Why was Chip Bepler interested 00:11:51.309 --> 00:11:55.090 in Strictly Reptiles? So Chip started out with 00:11:55.090 --> 00:11:59.110 Fish and Wildlife as an inspector and then moved 00:11:59.110 --> 00:12:04.350 to Office of Law Enforcement, working out of 00:12:04.350 --> 00:12:13.669 JFK. And he, in New York, was making wildlife 00:12:13.669 --> 00:12:20.110 cases. case after case, putting them together. 00:12:20.230 --> 00:12:22.590 And then his boss, Sam Labrandi said, you know, 00:12:22.730 --> 00:12:26.970 Chip, you know, I really appreciate your effort 00:12:26.970 --> 00:12:29.190 and your industry and things, but you know, we're 00:12:29.190 --> 00:12:30.710 not going to be able to prosecute any of these 00:12:30.710 --> 00:12:35.370 people. And Chip was, what do you mean? And well, 00:12:35.370 --> 00:12:39.450 you know, we're, our cases go to major crimes 00:12:39.450 --> 00:12:42.129 at the prosecutor's office and they're prosecuting 00:12:42.129 --> 00:12:46.580 Gotti right now. So you've got this Pine Barrens 00:12:46.580 --> 00:12:50.539 tree frog case you want to bring, or this barn 00:12:50.539 --> 00:12:54.379 owl case you want to bring. I'm not going to 00:12:54.379 --> 00:12:57.679 call them up. And Chip said, well, screw it. 00:12:57.679 --> 00:13:00.000 I'm calling them. And he did on a barn owl case. 00:13:01.539 --> 00:13:05.539 And as Sam told me the story, Chip held the phone 00:13:05.539 --> 00:13:08.539 away from his head. The prosecutor was yelling 00:13:08.539 --> 00:13:14.500 at him. so violently that how are you kidding 00:13:14.500 --> 00:13:16.679 me that you're bringing that you want to bring 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:20.940 an owl case um when we've got gaudy uh we're 00:13:20.940 --> 00:13:28.480 going after it so um but what what chip saw in 00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:32.559 um Sam moved into reptiles because reptiles were 00:13:32.559 --> 00:13:35.139 a lot of reptiles were coming through JFK And 00:13:35.139 --> 00:13:37.539 what chip saw was a lot of these reptiles were 00:13:37.539 --> 00:13:40.019 destined for this company in South Florida called 00:13:40.019 --> 00:13:43.059 strictly reptiles And that kind of put up being 00:13:43.059 --> 00:13:45.500 his bonnet for for you know, what's going on 00:13:45.500 --> 00:13:48.820 with strictly and as you know, very well reptiles 00:13:48.820 --> 00:13:52.259 You know is a very aboveboard business. It's 00:13:52.259 --> 00:13:56.879 very honest Keepers and and pet shops and breeders 00:13:56.879 --> 00:13:59.700 and things all around the world but when reptiles 00:13:59.700 --> 00:14:03.879 go dishonest they go they go hard and They're 00:14:03.879 --> 00:14:08.940 very clever the traders. It's high volume In 00:14:08.940 --> 00:14:12.399 some cases, it's very high value in other cases 00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:17.139 The great thing about smuggling reptiles is is 00:14:17.139 --> 00:14:19.720 they're small you can they're cold -blooded so 00:14:19.720 --> 00:14:22.419 they don't they can go for long periods of time 00:14:22.419 --> 00:14:27.320 without Water if you cool them down you can stuff 00:14:27.320 --> 00:14:33.679 them into things you can stuff them into a You 00:14:33.679 --> 00:14:39.460 can stuff poison our frogs into a matchbox and 00:14:39.460 --> 00:14:49.299 they do and Chip wanted to go after This wholesaler 00:14:49.299 --> 00:14:52.820 in Florida that would appear to be a major driver 00:14:53.019 --> 00:14:58.179 for reptiles and from what he was hearing, a 00:14:58.179 --> 00:15:01.759 lot of smugglers in Florida for lots of species 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:04.519 were keying off the success of Strictly. Like 00:15:04.519 --> 00:15:08.299 if Strictly's getting away with this on reptiles 00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:10.740 so I can do it for birds. Strictly's getting 00:15:10.740 --> 00:15:13.440 away with it on reptiles so I can do it for primates. 00:15:13.559 --> 00:15:17.220 And that was happening down there. So he and 00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:21.080 his wife Robin, Robin Bepler, was a wildlife 00:15:21.080 --> 00:15:24.360 inspector they moved to south florida in large 00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:27.779 part motivated by chip's desire to go after this 00:15:27.779 --> 00:15:33.399 guy's strictly reptiles and it turns out um uh 00:15:33.399 --> 00:15:38.500 they bought a ranch a rancher uh small house 00:15:38.500 --> 00:15:41.559 kind of down the street from strictly reptiles 00:15:41.559 --> 00:15:45.340 in hollywood and for chip to get to the office 00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:49.360 in miami he had to drive past mike's Warehouse 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:52.779 and Mike's warehouse is a former Frito lay warehouse. 00:15:52.779 --> 00:15:58.659 So it's it's got multiple loading docks It's 00:15:58.659 --> 00:16:01.360 it's surrounded in barbed wire in chain -link 00:16:01.360 --> 00:16:05.460 fence top of barbed wire their cameras It's basically 00:16:05.460 --> 00:16:11.460 half a city block devoted to moving legal and 00:16:11.460 --> 00:16:16.450 moving reptiles And and some exotic mammals and 00:16:16.450 --> 00:16:19.669 stuff. So Chip had to drive past. It was very 00:16:19.669 --> 00:16:28.570 much sheepdog and coyote to me. And when I went 00:16:28.570 --> 00:16:30.769 down there the first time, so I'm reading all 00:16:30.769 --> 00:16:35.230 these case files. And I decide I'm going to go 00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:38.470 to Strictly and see what it's like. And Strictly 00:16:38.470 --> 00:16:42.690 is on a sterling road in Hollywood. And it's 00:16:42.690 --> 00:16:47.600 not quite a highway. But you move it moves very 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:52.379 quickly, and there's no way to slow down to get 00:16:52.379 --> 00:16:58.899 a look into the parking lot. And so I had to 00:16:58.899 --> 00:17:01.240 keep making these drive -by passes that were 00:17:01.240 --> 00:17:04.000 the same passes Chip drove to work, but I had 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:07.279 to keep going back and forth just to kind of 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:10.619 put together a picture of what the parking lot 00:17:10.619 --> 00:17:12.559 looked like, let alone what it looked like inside. 00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:17.339 would have been a hard place to do surveillance. 00:17:18.259 --> 00:17:21.259 That's really where I'm going. I forget what's 00:17:21.259 --> 00:17:26.299 across the street, but I wanted to set up. This 00:17:26.299 --> 00:17:30.940 was my first or my second big investigation. 00:17:31.420 --> 00:17:36.880 It was my first real freewheeling I'm going to 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:42.680 do. My uncle, my godfather was one of the pioneer 00:17:42.680 --> 00:17:47.930 FBI undercover. undercovers. And he was mentoring 00:17:47.930 --> 00:17:51.430 me at this time, at this point, kind of giving 00:17:51.430 --> 00:17:55.609 me advice and things. And I wanted to do that 00:17:55.609 --> 00:17:58.109 kind of setup and watch, and there was no time 00:17:58.109 --> 00:18:02.329 for that. So I did what he later told me was 00:18:02.329 --> 00:18:06.490 the stupidest. He used a lot of profanity. But 00:18:06.490 --> 00:18:10.809 my first time confronting the Van Nostrands, 00:18:10.809 --> 00:18:20.960 I have a problem I look like a cop to people, 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:24.759 particularly if I'm asking questions as a journalist 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:29.740 and they're criminal. And so I came up with this 00:18:29.740 --> 00:18:33.420 plan that I went to Subway, which was just down 00:18:33.420 --> 00:18:36.339 the street and bought a sandwich with everything 00:18:36.339 --> 00:18:40.339 on it. Just what do you want? I want lettuce, 00:18:40.460 --> 00:18:43.349 tomato, mayonnaise. Oil and vinegar everything 00:18:43.349 --> 00:18:47.069 and I drove to strictly and I then I drove into 00:18:47.069 --> 00:18:49.349 the parking lot and a bunch of the employees 00:18:49.349 --> 00:18:53.069 were standing on the loading dock and I got out 00:18:53.069 --> 00:18:57.029 of my truck and dumped the sandwich down my shirt 00:18:57.029 --> 00:19:02.250 as I was taking a bite of it and they all saw 00:19:02.250 --> 00:19:05.549 me do it and they looked at me and they thought 00:19:05.549 --> 00:19:07.650 many things I might be many things but none of 00:19:07.650 --> 00:19:11.440 them thought I was a cop and I used that. That's 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:14.720 pretty good, Brian. Yeah, so I was very proud 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.039 of myself. I was like, you know, I broke it with 00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:20.019 humor. Everybody's kind of like, hey, asshole, 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.579 what are you, you know, what are you doing here 00:19:22.579 --> 00:19:26.779 and stuff? And so I told my uncle this after 00:19:26.779 --> 00:19:30.519 the after the fact, and he said, what you did? 00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:34.339 What are you the stupid? That's the stupidest 00:19:34.339 --> 00:19:37.799 effing thing I've ever heard you. You have a 00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:39.880 great story and this was a great lesson for me 00:19:39.880 --> 00:19:43.299 You just did a story for playboy playboy told 00:19:43.299 --> 00:19:46.759 you they want a story tell these guys You're 00:19:46.759 --> 00:19:50.599 there from playboy You you've had reptiles exactly 00:19:50.599 --> 00:19:53.700 had reptiles as a boy, you know about them You 00:19:53.700 --> 00:19:56.059 care about them. Tell them the truth. I said 00:19:56.059 --> 00:19:58.660 the whole truth that I'm there. No, not the whole 00:19:58.660 --> 00:20:02.720 truth you idiot This was kind of me getting off 00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:05.740 the ground so I did I went in The next day Mike 00:20:05.740 --> 00:20:09.200 wasn't there the first day anyway, and I went 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:12.279 there the next day and I said I'm from Playboy 00:20:12.279 --> 00:20:19.099 and he and His father Ray who was kind of the 00:20:19.099 --> 00:20:23.619 kingpin if you want to it's hard for me to Stand 00:20:23.619 --> 00:20:25.400 out so I know the family so well, it's hard for 00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:27.319 me to stand outside, but Ray sort of started 00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:32.250 everything Ray said you're from Playboy And Ray 00:20:32.250 --> 00:20:35.750 has a shaved head and gold chains. And I said, 00:20:35.809 --> 00:20:39.289 yep. And he got on the phone and I was concerned 00:20:39.289 --> 00:20:43.309 he was calling for backup or he was calling for 00:20:43.309 --> 00:20:45.769 somebody to check out my bona fides or something. 00:20:46.390 --> 00:20:48.930 And the next thing I know, Ray's girlfriend showed 00:20:48.930 --> 00:20:52.470 up and she said, you're from Playboy. And I said, 00:20:52.630 --> 00:20:56.130 yes. And she, she unbuttoned her top and said, 00:20:56.150 --> 00:21:00.019 do you think I can get in the magazine? That 00:21:00.019 --> 00:21:04.539 was my day one on my investigation. Yeah. That's 00:21:04.539 --> 00:21:07.099 a perfect juxtaposition to who Chip Bepler was. 00:21:07.140 --> 00:21:11.640 That's perfect. You mentioned in that explanation 00:21:11.640 --> 00:21:15.519 that Strictly Reptiles was coming up all the 00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:18.940 time in Chip's other investigations. And to give 00:21:18.940 --> 00:21:22.079 listeners a sense of the scope of these businesses, 00:21:23.079 --> 00:21:25.440 your book describes how Strictly Reptiles was 00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:29.170 supplying It was the major supplier of many, 00:21:29.430 --> 00:21:31.509 many reptiles all across the United States, but 00:21:31.509 --> 00:21:34.029 particularly on the East Coast, and was doing 00:21:34.029 --> 00:21:36.250 well over a million dollars in business every 00:21:36.250 --> 00:21:39.150 year. And the warehouse you described really 00:21:39.150 --> 00:21:42.210 triggers memories for me of all of the warehouses 00:21:42.210 --> 00:21:45.930 near Los Angeles International Airport that primarily 00:21:45.930 --> 00:21:47.990 deal with fish. But they're huge. I mean, these 00:21:47.990 --> 00:21:51.609 are many tens of thousands of square feet warehouses 00:21:51.609 --> 00:21:55.829 filled with row upon row of interconnected aquariums. 00:21:55.900 --> 00:22:01.319 that do nothing but 24 hours a day, 365 days 00:22:01.319 --> 00:22:05.140 a year, process live animals for the pet trade. 00:22:05.940 --> 00:22:08.740 And those big warehouses for reptile and the 00:22:08.740 --> 00:22:10.859 reptile importers and exporters, they're exactly 00:22:10.859 --> 00:22:17.140 the same. It's a huge business. And the Van Nostrands 00:22:17.140 --> 00:22:20.680 and Strictly were neck deep in it and making 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:24.250 a lot of money. Oh, yeah. I mean, they made I 00:22:24.250 --> 00:22:26.450 don't know how many millions they were making 00:22:26.450 --> 00:22:32.049 a year at their peak, but getting ahead of the 00:22:32.049 --> 00:22:36.390 story, when Mike's first year working with his 00:22:36.390 --> 00:22:39.490 dad, after his dad got out of prison, they made 00:22:39.490 --> 00:22:46.009 a million dollars. So they were really the gorilla 00:22:46.009 --> 00:22:49.230 on the block. LA Reptiles was their major competitor. 00:22:51.289 --> 00:22:55.210 And I don't know how the country sort of split 00:22:55.210 --> 00:22:59.990 up in terms of what species went where, but the 00:22:59.990 --> 00:23:04.829 only competitor they had during these years was 00:23:04.829 --> 00:23:09.549 LA reptiles. Yeah, a lot of that depends on shipping 00:23:09.549 --> 00:23:14.609 routes and who has the best access to shipping 00:23:14.609 --> 00:23:18.250 routes and the cheapest shipping routes. So tell 00:23:18.250 --> 00:23:22.220 us about what was the first time CHIP encountered 00:23:22.220 --> 00:23:25.400 Mike Van Ostrin. How did that come about, that 00:23:25.400 --> 00:23:27.119 Chip started an investigation? What was their 00:23:27.119 --> 00:23:39.059 first encounter like? So Chip, there was an agent 00:23:39.059 --> 00:23:41.779 in the Miami office named Jennifer English, and 00:23:41.779 --> 00:23:45.039 Jennifer was kind of Chip's walk through, walk 00:23:45.039 --> 00:23:47.339 Chip through what Miami was going to be like. 00:23:48.069 --> 00:23:52.829 Early on, when Chip got to Miami, they got a 00:23:52.829 --> 00:23:59.269 call that a guy, an Argentine green card holder 00:23:59.269 --> 00:24:02.470 from Argentina had been stopped at Miami International 00:24:02.470 --> 00:24:05.650 with a suitcase of what turned out to be turtles 00:24:05.650 --> 00:24:09.170 in socks. And he had hundreds of these things 00:24:09.170 --> 00:24:14.970 sewed into strips inside a suitcase. And this 00:24:14.970 --> 00:24:17.769 was going to be Jennifer Jennifer's idea was 00:24:17.769 --> 00:24:21.970 I'm going to introduce Chip to this no brainer 00:24:21.970 --> 00:24:25.150 smuggler that's not going to go anywhere. None 00:24:25.150 --> 00:24:30.130 of these cases ever go anywhere. And it turned 00:24:30.130 --> 00:24:34.089 out that this guy was carrying a black book that 00:24:34.089 --> 00:24:38.210 connected him to a major operation in South Florida 00:24:38.210 --> 00:24:42.269 called Pet Farm, which was at that point operating 00:24:42.269 --> 00:24:46.500 as a flow through shell. for Strictly. So Mike 00:24:46.500 --> 00:24:51.700 was, then Ostrand was writing checks to a guy 00:24:51.700 --> 00:24:54.339 at Petfarm named Dale Marantz. And Dale Marantz 00:24:54.339 --> 00:24:58.900 was writing checks to, or paying this courier 00:24:58.900 --> 00:25:04.799 named Thomas Medina. And Bepler flipped Medina 00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:12.740 off the bat. So right off the bat you had, he 00:25:12.740 --> 00:25:18.400 turned a nothing case into a lead on the biggest 00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:26.579 operator in the world, reptiles -wise. And so 00:25:26.579 --> 00:25:35.319 a guy that from state game named John West brought 00:25:35.319 --> 00:25:41.200 Chip to Strictly and introduced him to Mike and 00:25:43.420 --> 00:25:48.099 Chip said hey, we've or I think it was Mike who 00:25:48.099 --> 00:25:55.480 said Yeah, I hear I heard One of my customers 00:25:55.480 --> 00:26:00.220 Or suppliers you recently arrested and I was 00:26:00.220 --> 00:26:02.500 really surprised Mike said because I thought 00:26:02.500 --> 00:26:05.900 all his stuff was captive bread and Chip said 00:26:05.900 --> 00:26:08.099 now, why would you bring why would you say that 00:26:08.099 --> 00:26:13.339 out of the blue? Well, you know And then I can 00:26:13.339 --> 00:26:15.920 hear Mike backpedaling with this kind of... Mike, 00:26:16.259 --> 00:26:20.059 you cannot stop Stump Mike for an answer. Whether 00:26:20.059 --> 00:26:22.119 he's right or wrong in what he says, he will 00:26:22.119 --> 00:26:24.339 have an answer immediately. And he says, you 00:26:24.339 --> 00:26:27.259 know, I owe him money for this last shipment. 00:26:27.339 --> 00:26:28.960 He's probably going to need a lawyer and he probably 00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:33.740 wants to get paid. So he reached out to me and 00:26:33.740 --> 00:26:39.190 he says, as Bepler's leaving... you know, am 00:26:39.190 --> 00:26:40.849 I under investigation? Because I think you have 00:26:40.849 --> 00:26:44.230 to tell me if I am. And Bepler said, you're not 00:26:44.230 --> 00:26:46.849 under formal investigation. But I can't tell 00:26:46.849 --> 00:26:50.069 you I won't be back. And that, I mean, that's 00:26:50.069 --> 00:26:52.849 out of a movie right there. And, and of course, 00:26:52.849 --> 00:26:56.890 he is back and he's back again and often, as 00:26:56.890 --> 00:27:00.829 they say. And yeah, hard, step by step. Yeah. 00:27:02.730 --> 00:27:05.470 One of the greatest things I love about that 00:27:05.470 --> 00:27:07.849 description in the book of that encounter between 00:27:07.849 --> 00:27:10.309 Chip, that first encounter between Chip and Mike, 00:27:10.990 --> 00:27:15.150 is that when Chip leaves, Mike kind of thinks 00:27:15.150 --> 00:27:18.049 this agent's an idiot. He should have done what's 00:27:18.049 --> 00:27:20.049 called a controlled delivery, right? That's right. 00:27:20.849 --> 00:27:24.269 And this is what's kind of to back up for some 00:27:24.269 --> 00:27:26.190 of my listeners who aren't in law enforcement. 00:27:27.380 --> 00:27:29.960 It's pretty it's pretty common that you catch 00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:32.740 what we call a mule at the airport or somewhere 00:27:32.740 --> 00:27:36.519 else crossing a land border That's just they're 00:27:36.519 --> 00:27:38.799 called a mule because they're basically carrying 00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:42.339 contraband Wildlife drugs whatever for somebody 00:27:42.339 --> 00:27:45.279 higher up in the criminal enterprise And so there's 00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:47.059 a couple ways you can deal with it You can bust 00:27:47.059 --> 00:27:49.660 that person right there and do what chip did 00:27:49.660 --> 00:27:51.859 and interview them and see if they'll become 00:27:51.859 --> 00:27:56.880 a cooperator or you can If you do it right, you 00:27:56.880 --> 00:27:59.180 can let kind of let them go and they actually 00:27:59.180 --> 00:28:02.559 never know that you Know that they're smuggling 00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:05.099 wildlife and then you do a surveillance on that 00:28:05.099 --> 00:28:07.480 person and see where they go next and Wherever 00:28:07.480 --> 00:28:09.359 they deliver the product then you do a search 00:28:09.359 --> 00:28:12.099 warrant that's called a controlled delivery But 00:28:12.099 --> 00:28:14.119 the funny the thing I love about this is both 00:28:14.119 --> 00:28:16.400 techniques are totally legit and you described 00:28:16.400 --> 00:28:20.140 how chip successfully Flipped Medina turned him 00:28:20.140 --> 00:28:22.819 into a cooperator. But when chip left that meeting 00:28:22.819 --> 00:28:26.180 with Van Ostrin Mike Mike's thinking now this 00:28:26.180 --> 00:28:28.019 chips an idiot because he didn't do a controlled 00:28:28.019 --> 00:28:31.460 delivery on my place, right? Little do you know 00:28:31.460 --> 00:28:38.200 the chip had a plan And and and if you're not 00:28:38.200 --> 00:28:42.200 law enforcement you might miss This and I'm only 00:28:42.200 --> 00:28:44.920 really realizing it as I'm as we're talking about 00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:49.579 it By coincidence America's most wanted that 00:28:49.579 --> 00:28:54.710 TV show was at the airport They were doing a 00:28:54.710 --> 00:28:57.309 project on bird smuggling with Jennifer English. 00:28:57.390 --> 00:29:03.450 So Jennifer brought them To the airport to film. 00:29:03.450 --> 00:29:08.369 This is why I could tell the story so Accurately 00:29:08.369 --> 00:29:13.549 and in such detail There were cameras on Medina 00:29:13.549 --> 00:29:18.930 so It now occurs to me that chip might have been 00:29:18.930 --> 00:29:21.869 concerned that a controlled delivery wouldn't 00:29:21.869 --> 00:29:28.589 have worked if it aired not knowing when it might 00:29:28.589 --> 00:29:32.930 air on television, then if you're trying to break 00:29:32.930 --> 00:29:38.990 up a control delivery downstream, that could 00:29:38.990 --> 00:29:42.230 blow that. He had a couple of things he had to 00:29:42.230 --> 00:29:48.890 think about in that first intro. Yeah. It really 00:29:48.890 --> 00:29:52.740 speaks to though to chips. personality and character, 00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:56.059 because he was known kind of throughout the service 00:29:56.059 --> 00:30:00.420 as a person who was able to, I won't say make 00:30:00.420 --> 00:30:02.539 friends with the people he was investigating, 00:30:02.599 --> 00:30:06.940 that's the wrong word, but he was able to somehow 00:30:06.940 --> 00:30:10.619 identify with them and often build some sort 00:30:10.619 --> 00:30:13.059 of rapport with them. So he was actually pretty 00:30:13.059 --> 00:30:15.220 good at flipping people and turning them into 00:30:15.220 --> 00:30:20.009 cooperators because Bad guys always hate the 00:30:20.009 --> 00:30:22.130 cops who are chasing them. But at the same time, 00:30:22.170 --> 00:30:25.109 a lot of the guys who Chip was chasing couldn't 00:30:25.109 --> 00:30:27.970 hate him. They hated him, but they also liked 00:30:27.970 --> 00:30:30.710 him. You know what I mean? I heard that from 00:30:30.710 --> 00:30:33.609 Mike again and again and from a bunch of people. 00:30:35.069 --> 00:30:40.609 And to be honest, I took a lesson from that. 00:30:41.329 --> 00:30:42.950 Because particularly when you're in the wildlife 00:30:42.950 --> 00:30:48.680 space as a journalist, You're supposed to hate 00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:53.000 anybody dealing in wildlife, anybody moving wildlife 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:56.420 or profiting from wildlife. And I've taken a 00:30:56.420 --> 00:30:59.420 lot of heat or some heat over the years from 00:30:59.420 --> 00:31:05.059 people who think in black and white and want 00:31:05.059 --> 00:31:09.819 to treat people in black and white. And if you 00:31:09.819 --> 00:31:12.859 do that, you can feel good about yourself at 00:31:12.859 --> 00:31:16.700 the end of the day, but you don't move. the ball 00:31:16.700 --> 00:31:22.539 forward anywhere near as far as you can. And 00:31:22.539 --> 00:31:26.579 that was a lesson I learned from people talking 00:31:26.579 --> 00:31:31.039 about Chip. And I integrated into my own approach. 00:31:31.579 --> 00:31:37.799 And my uncle, the FBI undercover, was also very 00:31:37.799 --> 00:31:43.700 adamant about not being judgmental. And he compares 00:31:43.700 --> 00:31:53.630 undercover to a first date. You do what she wants 00:31:53.630 --> 00:31:58.029 to do. You like what she wants to like. This 00:31:58.029 --> 00:31:59.690 is kind of an exaggerated thing, and he might 00:31:59.690 --> 00:32:04.809 use more graphic language. But it's that kind 00:32:04.809 --> 00:32:13.319 of dance to an objective that particularly in 00:32:13.319 --> 00:32:17.079 the wildlife space, not many people, not enough 00:32:17.079 --> 00:32:20.819 people understand. Well, it's an interesting 00:32:20.819 --> 00:32:23.319 point because there's another element to it that 00:32:23.319 --> 00:32:27.339 I think a lot of law enforcement officers have 00:32:27.339 --> 00:32:29.339 this philosophy, and if they don't, they should. 00:32:30.059 --> 00:32:32.940 I got really great advice before I became a federal 00:32:32.940 --> 00:32:34.759 agent. I was a prosecutor for a while, and I 00:32:34.759 --> 00:32:38.240 got really great advice from then Attorney General 00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:40.480 of the state of Washington, Christine Gregoire. 00:32:40.859 --> 00:32:43.759 She used to tell all of the prosecutors in the 00:32:43.759 --> 00:32:48.400 AG's office never to forget that you'd still 00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:51.460 work for the people you're prosecuting. Like 00:32:51.460 --> 00:32:54.460 as a public servant, you work for the people 00:32:54.460 --> 00:32:58.160 you're actually chasing. And so with that comes 00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:00.920 certain responsibilities like protecting their 00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:03.519 constitutional rights, treating them with dignity. 00:33:04.700 --> 00:33:10.170 Yes, they are your Foe in terms of trying to 00:33:10.170 --> 00:33:12.009 enforce the law, but they're not your enemy. 00:33:12.690 --> 00:33:16.589 They are You are a law enforcer. Yeah, you're 00:33:16.589 --> 00:33:18.670 a law enforcer attempting to bring consequences 00:33:18.670 --> 00:33:22.670 to people who need it and these people You know, 00:33:22.849 --> 00:33:25.490 they're still Individuals who have rights and 00:33:25.490 --> 00:33:27.890 need to be treated decently So I had a similar 00:33:27.890 --> 00:33:30.269 experience with chip a lot of people that I investigated 00:33:30.269 --> 00:33:34.369 for years later arrested Who? Yeah, they didn't 00:33:34.369 --> 00:33:36.859 like me But yet they would still wave at me when 00:33:36.859 --> 00:33:38.859 they saw me in court. They would wave and smile 00:33:38.859 --> 00:33:42.440 because I treated them decently, you know? Yeah. 00:33:43.019 --> 00:33:46.180 Interesting phenomenon. Yeah. I mean, at Nat 00:33:46.180 --> 00:33:50.279 Geo, I would get people, you know, editors would 00:33:50.279 --> 00:33:54.299 say, how could you possibly know? Why did he 00:33:54.299 --> 00:33:56.680 tell you this? Talking about other smuggling 00:33:56.680 --> 00:34:01.779 stories I worked on. And my answer in general 00:34:01.779 --> 00:34:05.049 was because he liked me. you know, because I 00:34:05.049 --> 00:34:10.130 listened and spent the time. And they, I mean, 00:34:10.170 --> 00:34:12.130 most of the time when I would get an assignment, 00:34:12.190 --> 00:34:17.210 they would say, what do you need? And my number 00:34:17.210 --> 00:34:22.130 one answer would be time. It's not so much about 00:34:22.130 --> 00:34:26.869 money. It's not so much about expenses for that 00:34:26.869 --> 00:34:32.929 kind of thing. Just give me time and And that's, 00:34:32.929 --> 00:34:35.630 as an undercover and as an investigator, you 00:34:35.630 --> 00:34:38.090 know, that's kind of the, to build that sort 00:34:38.090 --> 00:34:40.530 of rapport and get past your own, in my case, 00:34:40.750 --> 00:34:43.829 you know, some of your own prejudices takes time 00:34:43.829 --> 00:34:47.329 too. It's the same. And it's the same whether 00:34:47.329 --> 00:34:50.869 it's an undercover or an overt investigation, 00:34:51.449 --> 00:34:54.230 because in that overt investigation, if you can't 00:34:54.230 --> 00:34:56.050 build rapport with the people you're going out 00:34:56.050 --> 00:34:57.909 and interviewing, they're not going to give you 00:34:57.909 --> 00:35:02.650 any information. So yeah, it's kind of inherent 00:35:02.650 --> 00:35:05.349 in the, you know what, we'll just say inherent 00:35:05.349 --> 00:35:08.349 in the investigator world, whether it's an investigative 00:35:08.349 --> 00:35:10.849 journalist or an investigator in a law enforcement 00:35:10.849 --> 00:35:14.789 setting. There's certain behaviors that garner 00:35:14.789 --> 00:35:17.829 better results. And back to how Chip was handling 00:35:17.829 --> 00:35:19.949 this, one of the things I find so interesting 00:35:19.949 --> 00:35:24.090 among criminals, bad guys, is that here Chip 00:35:24.090 --> 00:35:27.489 visits Mike Van Ostrin with a state officer in 00:35:27.489 --> 00:35:31.320 uniform. Mike definitely knows now that one of 00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:33.679 his couriers has been busted, right? He's got 00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:36.300 to know that Chip's, he might think Chip's a 00:35:36.300 --> 00:35:39.679 dummy, but he's not a complete dummy. And Chip's 00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:42.260 going to continue to investigate. And yet, Mike 00:35:42.260 --> 00:35:45.760 and Strictly Reptile continue to engage in illegal 00:35:45.760 --> 00:35:49.840 activity. After that first meeting, what were 00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:51.679 some of the things Strictly Reptile and Mike 00:35:51.679 --> 00:35:55.019 were involved in? What kind of illegal reptile 00:35:55.019 --> 00:36:02.639 business were they doing? He he had a don't ask 00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:12.519 don't tell philosophy So He had guys I Mean so 00:36:12.519 --> 00:36:15.300 to back up, you know Mike Mike inherited this 00:36:15.300 --> 00:36:19.159 business from his dad. His dad was a true reptile 00:36:19.159 --> 00:36:24.619 world -class expert, but he was also You know 00:36:24.619 --> 00:36:28.179 came up at a time when Miami was a drug trafficking 00:36:28.179 --> 00:36:31.260 center and gun trafficking center. And the kind 00:36:31.260 --> 00:36:36.400 of same rush you get from from dealing in Cobra's 00:36:36.400 --> 00:36:39.420 you get. And so he was doing all of that. Mike 00:36:39.420 --> 00:36:44.420 wanted to be an accountant and had gone to Broward 00:36:44.420 --> 00:36:48.300 Community College to be an accountant. He hated 00:36:48.300 --> 00:36:52.840 the drug dealer types that showed up at the family's 00:36:52.840 --> 00:36:58.150 house. His dad gets arrested in a major case 00:36:58.150 --> 00:37:02.730 called Operation Cobra that involves Mario Tabrowi, 00:37:02.769 --> 00:37:07.329 which is a big name in the DEA and fish and wildlife 00:37:07.329 --> 00:37:16.829 world, of course. And Ray rolls on Mario and 00:37:16.829 --> 00:37:20.630 goes to prison. He's in Witzek out in Arizona. 00:37:20.690 --> 00:37:28.630 And Mike quits his dream path to support his 00:37:28.630 --> 00:37:31.210 mom and brother and things. So he comes into 00:37:31.210 --> 00:37:36.110 the business with very genuine, really admirable 00:37:36.110 --> 00:37:37.969 goals that I'm going to shoulder, I'm going to 00:37:37.969 --> 00:37:42.530 take responsibility for the family. But he is 00:37:42.530 --> 00:37:48.110 just a giant child in a way, just can't avoid 00:37:48.110 --> 00:37:54.230 the thrill of getting away with something. So 00:37:54.230 --> 00:37:59.400 he's got guys suit casing stuff up from Central 00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:02.760 America and the thing that he loves is just them 00:38:02.760 --> 00:38:06.019 opening the suitcase like he can't believe Phil 00:38:06.019 --> 00:38:08.960 Langston who's supposed to be a CIA connected 00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:13.920 guy down has stuffed so many Lizards and snakes 00:38:13.920 --> 00:38:17.039 into a single suitcase. He just just that kind 00:38:17.039 --> 00:38:19.500 of opening the box, you know, they're people 00:38:19.500 --> 00:38:26.329 dig Box opening videos on TikTok and stuff. That's 00:38:26.329 --> 00:38:28.969 Mike sitting there. What do you, what do you 00:38:28.969 --> 00:38:32.289 got? So he's got those kinds of things. He's 00:38:32.289 --> 00:38:37.349 got, um, suppliers. Fermo Hasco is the, is the 00:38:37.349 --> 00:38:39.969 largest, you know, if you think about this as 00:38:39.969 --> 00:38:44.130 a syndicate, the major operators are Mike in 00:38:44.130 --> 00:38:47.769 the United States, uh, Fermo Hasco operating 00:38:47.769 --> 00:38:53.170 out of Indonesia, Anson Wong, uh, and Sungai 00:38:53.170 --> 00:38:56.889 Rusa Wildlife, who's using a zoo as a cover in 00:38:56.889 --> 00:39:00.010 Malaysia. And Anson is considered the Pablo Escobar 00:39:00.010 --> 00:39:03.170 of wildlife trafficking. He's moving snow leopard 00:39:03.170 --> 00:39:06.429 pelts and panda bear skins and elephants out 00:39:06.429 --> 00:39:11.289 of Thailand. He can get you Spix's macaws. But 00:39:11.289 --> 00:39:15.190 reptiles are his thing. And Anson is Mike's supplier 00:39:15.190 --> 00:39:20.340 for that part. So these guys all know each other 00:39:20.340 --> 00:39:24.280 and are operating so Mike is moving product from 00:39:24.280 --> 00:39:30.900 those guys Indian star tortoises Plowshare tortoises 00:39:30.900 --> 00:39:34.820 are on the are or something that Anson is moving 00:39:34.820 --> 00:39:40.159 at the time Fiji Island iguanas all the you know 00:39:40.159 --> 00:39:42.519 to non -reptile people they they don't really 00:39:42.519 --> 00:39:51.860 mean anything, but these are all the the gold 00:39:51.860 --> 00:39:55.699 level species for those who have the addiction. 00:39:56.119 --> 00:39:58.440 And that's what's going on in the consumer end 00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:01.440 of this is there are people, they're really addicted 00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:06.800 to, I've got to have the next shiny thing. And 00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:11.199 that's what we're dealing with. And you mentioned 00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:15.079 Fiji Island iguanas and I know Anson Wong, I 00:40:15.079 --> 00:40:17.639 believe was also involved in Komodo dragons, 00:40:17.639 --> 00:40:20.210 I believe. Some of these guys, I think it was 00:40:20.210 --> 00:40:25.730 Anson Wong who tried to smuggle some Komodo dragons 00:40:25.730 --> 00:40:28.070 that ended up going to the LA Zoo. And then when 00:40:28.070 --> 00:40:30.889 they grew up, they later bit the toe of the husband 00:40:30.889 --> 00:40:37.750 of Sharon Stone. That's another story. I'll let 00:40:37.750 --> 00:40:42.909 listeners read your book to get that story. That's 00:40:42.909 --> 00:40:45.150 one of the famous stories that goes around the 00:40:45.150 --> 00:40:49.409 LA field office. Because those are the Komodo 00:40:49.409 --> 00:40:51.989 dragons that the LA Zoo came from a law enforcement 00:40:51.989 --> 00:40:55.070 case where they were seized. And now they're 00:40:55.070 --> 00:41:01.269 big gigantic, ferocious dragons. But in naming 00:41:01.269 --> 00:41:03.530 some of these species, some of the species you 00:41:03.530 --> 00:41:05.909 mentioned are some of the most endangered reptiles 00:41:05.909 --> 00:41:10.409 in the world and hard to get. And I think some 00:41:10.409 --> 00:41:12.489 listeners will say, well, wait a second. There's 00:41:12.489 --> 00:41:14.869 a legal trade for reptiles, right? There's a 00:41:14.869 --> 00:41:17.969 big legal trade. We see reptiles at Petco, pet 00:41:17.969 --> 00:41:22.389 shops all the time. Why go to all the trouble 00:41:22.389 --> 00:41:26.750 of suit casing in exotics? And can you explain 00:41:26.750 --> 00:41:28.789 a little bit about that? Like, why aren't all 00:41:28.789 --> 00:41:31.670 these things legal? Why are people going to the 00:41:31.670 --> 00:41:34.250 trouble of smuggling reptiles when there is a 00:41:34.250 --> 00:41:38.079 legal trade in many species? Uh, because not 00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:41.400 all species are alike, uh, to, to collectors. 00:41:41.619 --> 00:41:44.719 It's a, it'd be, it'd be like saying to a coin 00:41:44.719 --> 00:41:48.739 collector, Hey, you've got a whole drawer full 00:41:48.739 --> 00:41:52.320 of pocket change. Why do you need a 1933 double 00:41:52.320 --> 00:41:57.219 Eagle gold piece? You know? Um, exactly. But, 00:41:57.460 --> 00:42:00.940 but these are the guys who have the 1929, the 00:42:00.940 --> 00:42:06.710 1930, the 1930 D the 1930 P, you know, That's 00:42:06.710 --> 00:42:11.289 this level of high end, when you're talking about 00:42:11.289 --> 00:42:16.309 the kind of boutique level species. And then 00:42:16.309 --> 00:42:18.010 there are some - And that's where the money is 00:42:18.010 --> 00:42:24.570 too. That's right. But there's also the making 00:42:24.570 --> 00:42:31.809 a species illegal to trade gives a monopoly. 00:42:32.170 --> 00:42:34.590 to the people who are willing to break the law 00:42:34.590 --> 00:42:38.909 and trade in that species. So the animal might 00:42:38.909 --> 00:42:42.389 not be rare, but because the country prohibits 00:42:42.389 --> 00:42:47.469 its exportation, it's hard to get. And only lawbreakers 00:42:47.469 --> 00:42:52.530 can get it for you. And that can cut. It's not 00:42:52.530 --> 00:42:56.789 always the law that is kind of right. For example, 00:42:57.050 --> 00:42:59.110 you can walk into PetSmart. You mentioned PetSmart. 00:42:59.579 --> 00:43:04.019 You can walk into PetSmart today and you'll see 00:43:04.019 --> 00:43:08.119 a bearded or bearded dragons. Maybe the most 00:43:08.119 --> 00:43:11.019 popular among the most popular reptiles and most 00:43:11.019 --> 00:43:14.679 appropriate pet reptiles there is. Well, those 00:43:14.679 --> 00:43:16.940 are from Australia and it's illegal to get them 00:43:16.940 --> 00:43:21.559 out. But some Germans did among others years 00:43:21.559 --> 00:43:26.619 ago and they're easy to breed. And as a result, 00:43:26.840 --> 00:43:29.070 there are bearded dragons everywhere, and nobody 00:43:29.070 --> 00:43:33.050 is going to fly over to Australia and stuff them 00:43:33.050 --> 00:43:38.750 in their underwear and carry them out of Australia. 00:43:41.389 --> 00:43:43.550 But the original guys, the reason they're out 00:43:43.550 --> 00:43:50.590 there is because they were illegal to trade in, 00:43:50.929 --> 00:43:53.190 and so guys were willing to take the risk for 00:43:53.190 --> 00:43:59.059 the money. to get those original ones out. That's 00:43:59.059 --> 00:44:00.980 an interesting point you make, you know, because 00:44:00.980 --> 00:44:04.719 I think generally speaking, we don't walk around 00:44:04.719 --> 00:44:06.659 thinking about it, but a lot of these species 00:44:06.659 --> 00:44:09.699 that are common in the pet trade now and completely 00:44:09.699 --> 00:44:14.960 legal were once, if you go far enough down their 00:44:14.960 --> 00:44:18.179 lineage, probably the originals were smuggled 00:44:18.179 --> 00:44:21.389 out of somewhere illegally. It happens. And that 00:44:21.389 --> 00:44:24.510 is a goal of a lot of these smugglers is to get, 00:44:24.630 --> 00:44:27.150 they want to get like a Fiji Island iguana, which 00:44:27.150 --> 00:44:29.409 is very endangered. They want to get it to the 00:44:29.409 --> 00:44:31.489 states and they want to breed it. And once they 00:44:31.489 --> 00:44:34.750 can breed it, then they can start to create this 00:44:34.750 --> 00:44:39.090 gray area where they're basically hiding an illegal 00:44:39.090 --> 00:44:41.969 animal and claiming it was captive raised. And 00:44:41.969 --> 00:44:45.670 in many instances, CITES has exceptions for captive 00:44:45.670 --> 00:44:48.150 raised animals. And that was one of the next 00:44:48.150 --> 00:44:51.010 question I was going to ask you is, did Strictly 00:44:51.010 --> 00:44:53.469 and Mike Van Ostrin, did they know the CITES 00:44:53.469 --> 00:44:55.650 rules and did they take advantage of loopholes 00:44:55.650 --> 00:44:58.409 like that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, Mike 00:44:58.409 --> 00:45:00.989 was these guys. Mike, in particular, was very 00:45:00.989 --> 00:45:05.969 adept at he. I mean, really, when I say I'm always 00:45:05.969 --> 00:45:09.500 underscoring that Mike's not a reptile guy. He's 00:45:09.500 --> 00:45:11.780 really a business guy that reptiles just happen 00:45:11.780 --> 00:45:15.619 to be the commodities moving. But for him, it's 00:45:15.619 --> 00:45:20.260 all about the paperwork. He is moving. So when 00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:23.619 Bepler would come in and say, I'm taking those 00:45:23.619 --> 00:45:30.360 tortoises, they're illegal, Mike would physically 00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:33.239 say, no, you're not taking them and go ahead 00:45:33.239 --> 00:45:37.699 and try. And there was a physical tug of war 00:45:37.699 --> 00:45:44.059 at one point. And Mike was resolute in his position 00:45:44.059 --> 00:45:48.079 because he knew he had paid off the appropriate 00:45:48.079 --> 00:45:52.900 Indian official to doctor the paperwork so that 00:45:52.900 --> 00:45:56.699 the paperwork was legitimate. And Mike believed 00:45:56.699 --> 00:46:03.400 if the paperwork is legitimate, I win. So people 00:46:03.400 --> 00:46:05.480 are always talking about CITES paperwork being 00:46:05.480 --> 00:46:08.900 doctored and captive bred, which is a loophole. 00:46:09.099 --> 00:46:12.519 If you've bred it in captivity, you can often 00:46:12.519 --> 00:46:16.239 trade in species that are otherwise illegal to 00:46:16.239 --> 00:46:19.420 move. But Mike really took it to another level 00:46:19.420 --> 00:46:24.849 where it was all about... It didn't matter if 00:46:24.849 --> 00:46:27.389 he bribed somebody to do that paperwork. If the 00:46:27.389 --> 00:46:29.630 paperwork had the right signature and the right 00:46:29.630 --> 00:46:37.610 boxes checked, he really did believe he was right, 00:46:38.570 --> 00:46:43.429 legally. It's funny because in some ways, he's 00:46:43.429 --> 00:46:46.510 not wrong because it takes a very, very good 00:46:46.510 --> 00:46:51.179 investigator. to uncover the basis for that fraud. 00:46:51.960 --> 00:46:55.739 It's not easy because you often have to get information 00:46:55.739 --> 00:46:58.239 from foreign countries. I worked on many cases 00:46:58.239 --> 00:47:00.440 like that where people doctored paperwork, and 00:47:00.440 --> 00:47:03.900 it becomes a totally different case and requires 00:47:03.900 --> 00:47:07.260 a whole different level of professional investigative 00:47:07.260 --> 00:47:10.519 skills. So in some ways, Mike wasn't wrong. He 00:47:10.519 --> 00:47:12.800 was much more likely to get away with it if the 00:47:12.800 --> 00:47:20.190 paperwork just looked right. Yeah. I mean, a 00:47:20.190 --> 00:47:23.170 lot of these, UAE was a country that they were 00:47:23.170 --> 00:47:28.650 moving some things through. West Africa was a, 00:47:28.849 --> 00:47:33.550 I mean, the level of corruption in these countries, 00:47:33.630 --> 00:47:37.449 I mean, so institutionalized, you almost can't 00:47:37.449 --> 00:47:41.829 call it corruption. I mean, on an ivory story, 00:47:41.889 --> 00:47:45.909 I was working with some wildlife officers in 00:47:45.909 --> 00:47:50.900 East Africa. they were explaining to me how we 00:47:50.900 --> 00:47:54.079 were talking about corruption. And he said, well, 00:47:54.480 --> 00:47:58.440 you know, my family has this many people in it 00:47:58.440 --> 00:48:03.000 and I'm expected because I have a good government 00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:06.500 job, I am expected to deliver a certain amount 00:48:06.500 --> 00:48:12.260 of money to my family members and quite distant 00:48:12.260 --> 00:48:16.239 from my perspective, family members. And so from 00:48:16.250 --> 00:48:20.670 But the perspective of my family, if I'm not 00:48:20.670 --> 00:48:26.250 stealing, I'm doing something wrong. And he told 00:48:26.250 --> 00:48:30.789 it in third person terms. He said, if they're 00:48:30.789 --> 00:48:32.230 not stealing, they're doing something wrong. 00:48:32.489 --> 00:48:40.969 But then at the end, he said, even me. And it's 00:48:40.969 --> 00:48:45.639 easy to say, oh, you're you shouldn't do that. 00:48:45.900 --> 00:48:49.039 But then you ask, what's your monthly salary? 00:48:50.519 --> 00:48:55.039 And it is the salary that wildlife officers get 00:48:55.039 --> 00:49:01.420 in some of these countries. It's just dollars 00:49:01.420 --> 00:49:04.699 a month. It's so bad. And these guys are, you 00:49:04.699 --> 00:49:08.960 know, one elephant tusk can carry these guys 00:49:08.960 --> 00:49:13.420 for months. That was the same in the Philippines. 00:49:13.789 --> 00:49:17.269 I had a guy that was willing to work with me 00:49:17.269 --> 00:49:21.190 in the Philippines on a project. But his government 00:49:21.190 --> 00:49:27.889 salary didn't allow him ink for his fax machine. 00:49:29.650 --> 00:49:34.170 So he wanted to share with me something. So I 00:49:34.170 --> 00:49:41.849 sent him cartridges of ink. And that was the 00:49:41.849 --> 00:49:46.920 only ink his office had. sort of thing is something 00:49:46.920 --> 00:49:56.039 people, it's really hard to, I felt really incredibly 00:49:56.039 --> 00:49:58.559 entitled and privileged to be coming over on 00:49:58.559 --> 00:50:03.840 my soapbox many times saying, you know, I'm investigating 00:50:03.840 --> 00:50:07.159 wildlife crime and seeing the circumstances that 00:50:07.159 --> 00:50:09.940 people on both sides of the law were in. It's 00:50:09.940 --> 00:50:13.260 very humbling. Yeah, I've had many conversations 00:50:13.260 --> 00:50:15.699 myself with foreign law enforcement officers 00:50:15.699 --> 00:50:17.840 about corruption and the drivers and sometimes 00:50:17.840 --> 00:50:23.260 the answers are very you know sobering and hard 00:50:23.260 --> 00:50:27.300 to you know Hard to preach against necessarily 00:50:27.300 --> 00:50:31.739 when they tell you our situations How did so 00:50:31.739 --> 00:50:35.199 how did ship finally make a case against Mike 00:50:35.199 --> 00:50:38.320 Van Ostrin and strictly? Well, it turns out and 00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:46.719 this is like, you know This story seemed magical 00:50:46.719 --> 00:50:52.760 in very extraordinary ways, both good and tragic 00:50:52.760 --> 00:51:01.179 in ways as well. But Chip is kind of, the team 00:51:01.179 --> 00:51:04.980 in the Miami office gave him, said, look, you 00:51:04.980 --> 00:51:07.789 want to go after strictly. It's full -time. It's 00:51:07.789 --> 00:51:09.710 gonna take it's gonna be a full -time operation 00:51:09.710 --> 00:51:13.070 We will take over your extra cases and enable 00:51:13.070 --> 00:51:16.030 you to go after strictly They gave him a separate 00:51:16.030 --> 00:51:18.969 room. He could they called the Batcave and he 00:51:18.969 --> 00:51:25.969 was full -time on strictly Unbeknownst to him 00:51:25.969 --> 00:51:31.409 there was a team in the Netherlands that had 00:51:31.409 --> 00:51:36.000 Seen something called a frilled dragon coming 00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:40.460 out of Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and 00:51:40.460 --> 00:51:48.460 with captive -born paperwork. They were marking 00:51:48.460 --> 00:51:56.280 these lizards at the source with a dye that would 00:51:56.280 --> 00:51:59.719 show up under a black light. And they were tracing 00:51:59.719 --> 00:52:05.349 these lizards from Indonesia. to Holland and 00:52:05.349 --> 00:52:10.250 then Seeing them go to as captive bred to strictly 00:52:10.250 --> 00:52:15.090 and They interesting. I don't remember how they 00:52:15.090 --> 00:52:19.269 connected These guys were equally they were not 00:52:19.269 --> 00:52:23.570 wildlife guys. They were just like the pioneers 00:52:23.570 --> 00:52:26.769 in law enforcement on reptiles and many ways 00:52:26.769 --> 00:52:31.130 they were made fun of in major crimes, saying, 00:52:31.289 --> 00:52:33.110 we're going to go after frilled dragons instead 00:52:33.110 --> 00:52:40.070 of mafia guys. They named their team Team Aura, 00:52:40.829 --> 00:52:46.610 the Latin for the poison arrow frogs that were 00:52:46.610 --> 00:52:53.329 also coming through. And they - Dutch police, 00:52:53.449 --> 00:52:58.090 yeah, the Dutch police, right? And they had wiretapping 00:52:58.090 --> 00:53:02.170 powers that Chip did not have. And they got a 00:53:02.170 --> 00:53:08.449 tap as well on the comms between a guy in Indonesia. 00:53:10.369 --> 00:53:13.670 And when they teamed up together, that helped 00:53:13.670 --> 00:53:18.329 build the case against Mike. Interesting. OK. 00:53:18.349 --> 00:53:21.389 So finally, they somehow connected with Chip, 00:53:21.449 --> 00:53:24.449 shared information, and that allowed Chip to 00:53:24.449 --> 00:53:28.739 prove. that fraudulent paperwork and that Mike 00:53:28.739 --> 00:53:31.659 knew he was importing essentially wild frilled 00:53:31.659 --> 00:53:37.000 dragons, yeah? Yeah. Chipp had several cases 00:53:37.000 --> 00:53:39.599 in play at the same time. There was a case of 00:53:39.599 --> 00:53:46.099 99 star tortoises. He had a number of cases in 00:53:46.099 --> 00:53:49.860 play and he was able to, off the top of my head, 00:53:49.880 --> 00:53:53.579 I don't remember which case was kind of the nail 00:53:53.579 --> 00:54:01.179 in the coffin. for Van Nostrand. But the the 00:54:01.179 --> 00:54:07.179 the frill dragon case was the lead. As I recall 00:54:07.179 --> 00:54:12.980 that that ended up being prosecutable. And the 00:54:12.980 --> 00:54:15.280 fun thing is, Chip eventually teamed up with 00:54:15.280 --> 00:54:18.840 a fairly new assistant US attorney in Miami named 00:54:18.840 --> 00:54:22.639 Tom Watts Fitzgerald, who went on to become fairly 00:54:23.349 --> 00:54:26.369 fairly famous in his own right for leading the 00:54:26.369 --> 00:54:28.769 environmental crime section, or starting and 00:54:28.769 --> 00:54:30.389 leading the environmental crime section there 00:54:30.389 --> 00:54:34.230 in Miami. And he was able to get a successful 00:54:34.230 --> 00:54:37.329 prosecution on, I don't think it was Tom Watts 00:54:37.329 --> 00:54:39.789 Fitzgerald that prosecuted strictly, but Chip 00:54:39.789 --> 00:54:42.210 was able to get a successful prosecution on strictly 00:54:42.210 --> 00:54:47.429 in my, oh, it was, okay, cool. What was the result? 00:54:49.010 --> 00:54:51.210 By wildlife standards, it was small. I think 00:54:51.210 --> 00:54:56.349 you got eight months prison time and $250 ,000 00:54:56.349 --> 00:54:58.570 fine, as I recall, and then was kind of knocked 00:54:58.570 --> 00:55:06.210 out of international trade for a bit. But it 00:55:06.210 --> 00:55:10.989 knocked Mike back on his heels in a way that 00:55:10.989 --> 00:55:14.269 altered the direction, I think, of his life. 00:55:16.110 --> 00:55:19.880 And I say that with some caveats that we might 00:55:19.880 --> 00:55:26.780 want to get to. And it also sent shockwaves through 00:55:26.780 --> 00:55:31.719 the reptile world that strictly had fallen. And 00:55:31.719 --> 00:55:35.739 when strictly fell, I believe that had a chilling 00:55:35.739 --> 00:55:41.800 effect across the reptile world and beyond into 00:55:41.800 --> 00:55:44.440 the bird world in South Florida. You know, South 00:55:44.440 --> 00:55:49.559 Florida is a melting pot for wildlife crime of 00:55:49.559 --> 00:55:53.300 all species. And of course, at the same time, 00:55:53.380 --> 00:55:56.840 you have Operation Chameleon going down with 00:55:56.840 --> 00:56:04.079 George Morrison and Ken McLeod, Sam Holla. And 00:56:04.079 --> 00:56:08.820 that is an operation targeting Anson Wong, who 00:56:08.820 --> 00:56:14.260 is Mike's major Asian supplier. So those two 00:56:14.260 --> 00:56:17.090 things wrapped at a at around the same time, 00:56:17.130 --> 00:56:21.849 the late 90s. And Anson was a much bigger, Anson 00:56:21.849 --> 00:56:29.150 gets five years. That was a major case. And Mike 00:56:29.150 --> 00:56:34.949 rolls on Anson, which is quite significant. That 00:56:34.949 --> 00:56:39.409 helped his sentence, no doubt. Right. And Chip, 00:56:39.650 --> 00:56:44.150 because of the report Chip built with Mike that 00:56:44.150 --> 00:56:50.539 he could that Mike would think that he could 00:56:50.539 --> 00:56:55.900 do that in a responsible way. You mentioned there 00:56:55.900 --> 00:56:59.840 are three pretty famous agents, Special Agent 00:56:59.840 --> 00:57:02.639 George Morrison, Special Agent Ken McLeod, and 00:57:02.639 --> 00:57:05.480 Special Agent Sam Mahola. Those three agents 00:57:05.480 --> 00:57:08.280 were part of Special Operations Unit, which was 00:57:08.280 --> 00:57:11.079 part of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. they 00:57:11.079 --> 00:57:14.239 did take down Anson Wong, which was an amazing 00:57:14.239 --> 00:57:17.780 coup. And the timing of it, I think your point 00:57:17.780 --> 00:57:19.900 is well taken. The timing of that with Strictly 00:57:19.900 --> 00:57:22.840 was kind of a blow to some of these kind of cowboys 00:57:22.840 --> 00:57:27.119 who had the Wild West of reptile smuggling for 00:57:27.119 --> 00:57:30.699 a while there. Yeah. I mean, just in the same 00:57:30.699 --> 00:57:34.400 way Operation Renegade took out the bird world 00:57:34.400 --> 00:57:41.789 in the... in the early 90s. Reptiles in the late 00:57:41.789 --> 00:57:47.110 90s were the traffic high dollar, high crime, 00:57:47.530 --> 00:57:58.250 violence was a part of the trade. Yeah, it was 00:57:58.250 --> 00:58:03.869 the major wildlife case for that generation. 00:58:04.570 --> 00:58:08.239 You mentioned some caveats. And let's talk about, 00:58:08.280 --> 00:58:10.159 I think sometimes when we talk about these penalties, 00:58:10.300 --> 00:58:12.219 some of our listeners or my listeners are like, 00:58:12.360 --> 00:58:14.639 what? He only got eight months, one of the worst 00:58:14.639 --> 00:58:16.380 wildlife traffickers in the country, and they 00:58:16.380 --> 00:58:18.719 only got eight months. Tell us about some of 00:58:18.719 --> 00:58:21.619 those caveats you mentioned, you hinted at, and 00:58:21.619 --> 00:58:23.579 what do you think about sentences like this in 00:58:23.579 --> 00:58:28.840 terms of overall deterrence? Yeah, so I do think 00:58:28.840 --> 00:58:37.030 it had a major chilling effect. The caveat I 00:58:37.030 --> 00:58:49.289 have in mind is Mike said to me, without Chip's 00:58:49.289 --> 00:58:52.389 interdiction, he never would have stopped smuggling. 00:58:55.389 --> 00:59:01.510 And just like collectors kind of move from the 00:59:01.510 --> 00:59:06.329 next most rare, the next rarer thing to be a 00:59:06.329 --> 00:59:11.250 dealer and moving in more and more rarer and 00:59:11.250 --> 00:59:13.170 rarer, higher and higher dollar, you're getting 00:59:13.170 --> 00:59:16.170 into more dangerous territory. So I don't know 00:59:16.170 --> 00:59:19.530 where Mike's life would have gone if he had not 00:59:19.530 --> 00:59:23.010 been, had the brakes put on at a time when he 00:59:23.010 --> 00:59:26.230 had a young family and was forced to kind of 00:59:26.230 --> 00:59:31.039 reckon with The fact that he had fallen into 00:59:31.039 --> 00:59:34.900 the similar shoes to the shoes he tried to avoid 00:59:34.900 --> 00:59:40.619 that were had been his father's The the sentence 00:59:40.619 --> 00:59:52.360 itself is yeah, it was It was Low From an outsider's 00:59:52.360 --> 00:59:56.539 perspective the challenge one of the challenges 00:59:56.539 --> 01:00:01.480 that you guys faced is The law requires knowledge 01:00:01.480 --> 01:00:04.840 under the Lacey Act. You've got to prove that 01:00:04.840 --> 01:00:12.699 the smuggler knew the animals he was moving were 01:00:12.699 --> 01:00:15.460 illegal. And that's different from cocaine. You 01:00:15.460 --> 01:00:17.539 don't have to prove the guy with cocaine in his 01:00:17.539 --> 01:00:22.420 pocket knew cocaine was illegal, but you do with 01:00:22.420 --> 01:00:28.800 wildlife. And so making a case is very, very 01:00:28.800 --> 01:00:33.000 difficult. There's another element to it that's 01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:35.159 probably worth a whole episode of this podcast 01:00:35.159 --> 01:00:38.420 all by itself, which is probably coming, honestly, 01:00:38.559 --> 01:00:42.500 down the road. A lot of what we haven't talked 01:00:42.500 --> 01:00:45.239 about, but certainly Chip also made charges against 01:00:45.239 --> 01:00:48.280 strictly for things like money laundering, smuggling. 01:00:49.920 --> 01:00:53.199 Lacey act endangered species act all of those 01:00:53.199 --> 01:00:55.099 except endangered species act could be felony 01:00:55.099 --> 01:00:57.860 serious felonies But what it comes down to is 01:00:57.860 --> 01:01:00.699 when a judge sentences somebody they refer to 01:01:00.699 --> 01:01:02.599 what's called the u .s Sentencing guidelines 01:01:02.599 --> 01:01:04.920 in the federal court and they are guidelines 01:01:04.920 --> 01:01:07.179 They're not mandatory, but most judges follow 01:01:07.179 --> 01:01:09.880 the guidelines because they want to be consistent 01:01:09.880 --> 01:01:11.820 with other judges around the country when they 01:01:11.820 --> 01:01:15.090 sentence And that, in my opinion, Brian, is the 01:01:15.090 --> 01:01:17.869 real crux of the problem with low sentences in 01:01:17.869 --> 01:01:20.670 federal wildlife cases is that they're guided 01:01:20.670 --> 01:01:24.230 by the sentencing guidelines, which have a specific 01:01:24.230 --> 01:01:27.690 section for environmental crimes. And interestingly, 01:01:28.090 --> 01:01:31.369 I'll bet you didn't even know this, I don't think 01:01:31.369 --> 01:01:33.909 the sentencing guidelines have been updated for 01:01:33.909 --> 01:01:38.510 almost 40 years. And so they reflect a different. 01:01:38.639 --> 01:01:41.619 era and a different time in our thinking about 01:01:41.619 --> 01:01:44.559 how serious wildlife trafficking is. And many 01:01:44.559 --> 01:01:47.099 of the most serious wildlife trafficking offenses, 01:01:47.179 --> 01:01:48.900 when you look at them in the sentencing guidelines, 01:01:49.559 --> 01:01:51.840 some of them come out with the same recommended 01:01:51.840 --> 01:01:55.480 sentences you would get for vandalizing a outhouse 01:01:55.480 --> 01:01:59.340 in a national park. That's fascinating. How's 01:01:59.340 --> 01:02:03.500 that for us? Yeah, that's something we're going 01:02:03.500 --> 01:02:05.539 to talk about in more detail on this podcast, 01:02:05.679 --> 01:02:11.090 because really, What needs to happen is the Judicial 01:02:11.090 --> 01:02:13.829 Commission needs to go back and look at the sentencing 01:02:13.829 --> 01:02:16.230 guidelines for environmental crimes and change 01:02:16.230 --> 01:02:17.989 them. They need to be updated. That's a great 01:02:17.989 --> 01:02:23.530 idea. In addition to, you know, there's lots 01:02:23.530 --> 01:02:25.969 of things CITES could do, too, to close loopholes 01:02:25.969 --> 01:02:30.369 and whatnot. There's no avoiding the sad ending 01:02:30.369 --> 01:02:32.969 to this part of this story, and that is that 01:02:32.969 --> 01:02:36.400 shortly after this case went down and Chip was 01:02:36.400 --> 01:02:39.360 kind of looking for his next case. He was diagnosed 01:02:39.360 --> 01:02:42.659 with a brain tumor. And what about two years 01:02:42.659 --> 01:02:47.519 later, he passed away. But that's a tragic story. 01:02:47.619 --> 01:02:50.079 It was a huge loss for the service to lose Chip. 01:02:50.659 --> 01:02:55.519 But I think one of the most poignant parts of 01:02:55.519 --> 01:02:58.380 The Lizard King is the chapter where you describe 01:02:58.380 --> 01:03:01.280 Chip's funeral. And there was an unexpected guest 01:03:01.280 --> 01:03:05.480 at that funeral. Who was that? It's Mike Van 01:03:05.480 --> 01:03:20.079 Nostrand. The same Florida game officer, John 01:03:20.079 --> 01:03:28.539 West, who I think is now Captain John West, is 01:03:28.539 --> 01:03:35.880 at the funeral. And Mike is not asked to... go 01:03:35.880 --> 01:03:39.260 to the funeral. But he takes it upon himself 01:03:39.260 --> 01:03:46.119 to show up. And this speaks to the rapport that 01:03:46.119 --> 01:03:50.099 Chip developed with him. And Mike really respected 01:03:50.099 --> 01:03:54.300 Chip. I could hear it. I spent years with Mike. 01:03:54.800 --> 01:03:57.440 And you could hear every story he told, no matter 01:03:57.440 --> 01:04:00.980 how mad he was or how wrong he thought Papler 01:04:00.980 --> 01:04:05.570 was. every time he had respect for him, and he 01:04:05.570 --> 01:04:12.230 would sort of footnote that constantly. And so 01:04:12.230 --> 01:04:16.030 these are all people who love Chip and are going 01:04:16.030 --> 01:04:20.130 to miss him. They are wildlife officers from 01:04:20.130 --> 01:04:23.989 across the country, prosecutors that he's interacted 01:04:23.989 --> 01:04:28.230 with from New York and Florida, of course, Chip's 01:04:28.230 --> 01:04:33.199 family. Um, they all know who Mike Van Oosteren, 01:04:33.280 --> 01:04:36.559 if you know Chip, you know who Van Oosteren is 01:04:36.559 --> 01:04:40.139 and Mike weighs 400 pounds. So he's, he's not, 01:04:40.519 --> 01:04:43.780 you know, he's not a person who can hide. Um, 01:04:44.139 --> 01:04:48.300 and you know, he walks in and he, as he called 01:04:48.300 --> 01:04:50.519 it for, counted it for me, you know, everyone, 01:04:50.699 --> 01:04:53.380 most people are saying, what is he doing here? 01:04:54.340 --> 01:05:03.400 Uh, and Mike took a seat next to. John West and 01:05:03.400 --> 01:05:04.900 said, you know, do you mind if I sit with you 01:05:04.900 --> 01:05:10.519 John? and then as people are standing up to talk 01:05:10.519 --> 01:05:13.980 about chip West elbows him and says you got to 01:05:13.980 --> 01:05:20.000 stand up stat say something Mike and Wow and 01:05:20.000 --> 01:05:24.599 It's when I heard that part of the story I knew 01:05:24.599 --> 01:05:28.710 I wanted to write this book because And Mike 01:05:28.710 --> 01:05:33.610 does, and he stands up and he says, I'm probably 01:05:33.610 --> 01:05:35.710 the most unique person in this room because I 01:05:35.710 --> 01:05:40.690 was one of Chip's cases. And it goes on to talk 01:05:40.690 --> 01:05:45.309 about what a great father he knew Chip was. They 01:05:45.309 --> 01:05:48.809 both were into baseball. Mike's a very serious, 01:05:48.809 --> 01:05:52.090 as a result of getting kind of knocked off the 01:05:52.090 --> 01:05:55.829 rails of illegal behavior, at least for a while. 01:05:56.119 --> 01:05:59.539 He gets very involved in Little League. He's 01:05:59.539 --> 01:06:03.300 a great coach. And Chip was also into sports. 01:06:04.420 --> 01:06:09.820 And he talked about that and what a positive 01:06:09.820 --> 01:06:12.780 influence Chip had on his life. So that was a 01:06:12.780 --> 01:06:21.260 very poignant moment through a very tragic event. 01:06:22.079 --> 01:06:24.940 Yeah, I have to say, I think You know, it speaks 01:06:24.940 --> 01:06:28.340 volumes for Chip's professionalism and character 01:06:28.340 --> 01:06:32.420 that he was able to make that impression on somebody 01:06:32.420 --> 01:06:34.360 else, and yet still hold them accountable. You 01:06:34.360 --> 01:06:36.559 know, it's not as if he let Mike get away with 01:06:36.559 --> 01:06:39.860 anything. It's not as if he became his pal and 01:06:39.860 --> 01:06:42.320 looked the other way. He held him accountable, 01:06:42.320 --> 01:06:46.019 but he still managed to gain that kind of respect, 01:06:46.199 --> 01:06:49.760 which I think it's obvious to listeners that 01:06:49.760 --> 01:06:52.519 Mike is Strictly reptiles is still in existence. 01:06:52.519 --> 01:06:55.000 It's not like the fish and wildlife investigation 01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:58.760 put him out of business, but it clearly had an 01:06:58.760 --> 01:07:01.099 effect on the person who needed consequences. 01:07:01.519 --> 01:07:04.920 I wanted to close the book on positive, a positive 01:07:04.920 --> 01:07:07.539 note. Um, but there was something in the back 01:07:07.539 --> 01:07:11.559 of my mind that said, you know, um, you don't 01:07:11.559 --> 01:07:14.800 want to vouch for Mike in this story because 01:07:14.800 --> 01:07:16.539 you don't know what the future is going to hold. 01:07:17.219 --> 01:07:21.769 And it turns out, um, That just a few years ago 01:07:21.769 --> 01:07:27.090 Mike is prosecuted again by Tom Watts Fitzgerald 01:07:27.090 --> 01:07:31.269 The same prosecutor that that got him with chip 01:07:31.269 --> 01:07:37.969 for smuggling turtles to Florida turtles to China 01:07:37.969 --> 01:07:43.010 and Japan is the allegation and he is convicted 01:07:43.010 --> 01:07:46.949 sentence again to several months in prison and 01:07:48.079 --> 01:07:51.699 I think the fine was $150 ,000. Uh, but he's 01:07:51.699 --> 01:07:54.880 also barred from the business entirely for a 01:07:54.880 --> 01:08:00.760 number of years. Um, and so that, um, is the 01:08:00.760 --> 01:08:06.019 modern update on, um, on his story. That's interesting 01:08:06.019 --> 01:08:08.539 because, you know, uh, my colleague and I, Aaron 01:08:08.539 --> 01:08:11.659 Dean, we used to talk a lot about how, you know, 01:08:11.780 --> 01:08:14.239 to some extent, we'll see some of these guys 01:08:14.239 --> 01:08:16.739 again. And there's not necessarily anything wrong 01:08:16.739 --> 01:08:18.579 with that, because we can't control for that. 01:08:18.899 --> 01:08:23.159 All we can do is enforce the law as it's written, 01:08:23.340 --> 01:08:30.500 and we let the courts and the process take their 01:08:30.500 --> 01:08:32.760 course. And some of these people will be back 01:08:32.760 --> 01:08:34.500 again, and they will need more consequences. 01:08:34.859 --> 01:08:38.000 And if those jail times go longer and the fines 01:08:38.000 --> 01:08:40.979 get higher, the more they re -offend. So, Brian, 01:08:41.020 --> 01:08:42.979 thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate 01:08:42.979 --> 01:08:46.039 it. Everybody go out and get The Lizard King. 01:08:46.100 --> 01:08:48.840 It's a great book, an easy read, fun read, and 01:08:48.840 --> 01:08:52.779 you'll learn a lot. Take care. Nature's Secret 01:08:52.779 --> 01:08:55.600 Service is written and produced by me, Ed Newcomer, 01:08:55.720 --> 01:08:58.619 and is co -produced by the DHTV team here at 01:08:58.619 --> 01:09:00.819 California State University Dominguez Hills. 01:09:01.140 --> 01:09:03.180 Follow us on social media and connect with us 01:09:03.180 --> 01:09:05.439 online at naturessecretservice .com.